Best Way To Publish an "Indie" Research Paper?

alexmipego writes "I'm a developer, and a few months ago while working on a common geodesic problem (distance between two GPS points) I started to research a new algorithm that greatly improves the performance over existing algorithms. After relearning a lot of math I'm now fairly close to the final algorithm, after which I'll run extensive benchmarks comparing my algorithm with the most commonly used ones. After spending so much time on this, and if the final results are positive, I feel that simply posting this type of work on a blog might not be the best option, so I'm looking into something more formal, like a research paper. I've no experience on those, have not even read a complete one, so my first question is what resources do you recommend to learn how to write one? And even after I write it, I can't expect to be published by Science or other high-profile publications. So where should I send it to make it known by people in the respective fields and be taken seriously?"

Academics control publication

[Intron]

Your best bet to get it published is:

• patent it
• get Garmin and TomTom into a bidding war
• Profit!
• Buy Science
• Force them to publish your paper

GPS navigation

[kackle]

"So where should I send it to make it known by people on the respective fields and be taken seriously?"

Why don't you use your fancy schmancy algorithm and locate that yourself!

Re:If you can't beat em...

[bieber]

Perhaps because he/she recognizes the idiocy of software patents, and cares more about doing what's right than their own bank account? I know it's a novel concept, but some people do live for more than just money...

Easy.

[tool462]

Publish it on Slashdot. Our world-renowned peer-review process will include:

1) Claims that it's vaporware
2) Claims that it's obviously patentable
3) Claims that it's patently obvious
4) Claims that it's identical to a completely different algorithm
5) Claims that it won't work from people who either didn't read or didn't understand your paper
6) Claims that it's an amazing breakthrough from people who either didn't read or didn't understand your paper
7) Two separate Microsoft/Apple fanboi wars.
8) One guy saying how awesome it would be if somebody made an implementation of your algorithm in their favorite programming language.
9) One useful response that you'll never read because the poster accidentally replied to the wrong thread and got modded -1, Flamebait

Re:academic skepticism

[Anonymous Coward]

On the cover of that book there is an illustration of two dies. Now what does that tell you?

That you don't know the proper plural of die?

Re:archive.org

[Anonymous Coward]

What?! Steven P Jobs works at Microsoft Research?!

I can help!

[tommeke100]

Just e-mail me your research and I'll write it up in a nice scientific paper.

edited by

Mark Zuckerberg